Representative image showing the Sri Lanka flag.
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Colombo: Pakiyaselvam Ariyanethran was named on Thursday as the common candidate by a cluster of Sri Lankan Tamil parties, but without the main party, ITAK, for the September 21 presidential election.
Pakiyaselvam Ariyanethran, 69, is a former Member of Parliament. He was named in the northern capital of Jaffna earlier in the morning, Tamil party sources confirmed here.
The leaders of north and east-based Tamil parties TELO, PLOTE, TPA, TNP and EPRLF with a civil group named Tamil People’s Congress Association had signed an agreement in mid-July to field the common candidate.
However, the main Tamil party, ITAK, which heads the umbrella group Tamil National Alliance (TNA), was not a party to the agreement.
ITAK’s leading member M A Sumanthiran had dismissed the idea as a bad decision as it would weaken the Tamil minority position at the election.
In addition to fielding Tamil candidates at several past presidential elections, the Tamils from the north and east regions have aligned historically with the opposition candidate.
So far, some 22 candidates have paid deposits to contest with nomination that closes on August 15. Namal Rajapaksa, the 38-year-old heir to the Rajapaksa dynasty, was on Wednesday named as the SLPP candidate for the presidential election.
Namal's entry made the election a four-cornered contest. Besides President Wickremesinghe, the main opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and the Marxist JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake are already in the fray.
Sri Lanka has a mixed demography and Tamils, both ethnic Sri Lankan Tamils and Indian-origin Tamils. They reside mostly in north and eastern Sri Lanka. PTI CORR NPK NPK NPK